@subsection Goals

This section descirbes the implementation of @emph{The CentOS Project

Corporate Identity}.

@subsection Description

The CentOS Project Corporate Identity is the ``persona'' of the

organization known as The CentOS Project.  The CentOS Project

Corporate Identity plays a significant role in the way the CentOS

Project, as organization, presents itself to both internal and

external stakeholders. In general terms, the CentOS Project Corporate

Identity expresses the values and ambitions of the CentOS Project

organization, its business, and its characteristics.  

The CentOS Project Corporate Identity provides visibility,

recognizability, reputation, structure and identification to The

CentOS Project organization by means of @emph{Corporate Design},

@emph{Corporate Communication}, and @emph{Corporate Behaviour}.

@subsubsection Corporate Design

The CentOS Project Corporate Design is applied to every single visual

manifestations The CentOS Project as organization wants to express its

existence. Examples of the most relevant visual manifestations inside

The CentOS Project are @emph{The CentOS Distribution}, @emph{The

CentOS Web} and @emph{The CentOS Stationery}.

The CentOS Project Corporate Design is organized in the following

work-lines:

@table @strong

@item Brushes

@item Fonts

The CentOS Fonts provide the @emph{Corporate Typography} information

used along The CentOS Project visual manifestations.

@xref{Directories trunk Identity Fonts}, for more information.

@item Images

@item Models

@item Palettes 

The CentOS Palettes provide the @emph{Corporate Color} information

used along The CentOS Project visual manifestations.

@xref{Directories trunk Identity Palettes}, for more information.

@item Patterns

@item Themes

The CentOS Themes provide the @emph{Corporate Structure} and the

@emph{Corporate Visual Style} used along The CentOS Project visual

manifestations.

@xref{Directories trunk Identity Themes}, for more information.

@item Webenv

@end table

@subsubsection Corporate Communication

The CentOS Project Corporate Communication is based on @emph{Community

Communication}.  In that sake, the following media are available:

@itemize

@item The CentOS Chat (@code{#centos}, @code{#centos-social},

@code{#centos-devel} on irc.freenode.net)

@item The CentOS Mailing Lists (@url{http://lists.centos.org/}).

@item The CentOS Forums (@url{http://forums.centos.org/}).

@end itemize

@subsubsection Corporate Behaviour

The CentOS Project Corporate Behaviour is based on @emph{Community

Behaviour}.

@subsubsection Corporate Structure

The CentOS Project Corporate Structure is based on a @emph{Monolithic

Corporate Visual Identity Structure}. In this structure, one unique

name and one unique visual style is used in all visual manifestation

of The CentOS Project.

In a monolithic corporate visual identity structure, internal and

external stakeholders use to feel a strong sensation of uniformity,

orientation, and identification with the organization. No matter if

you are visiting web sites, using the distribution, or acting on

social events, the one unique name and one unique visual style

connects them all to say: @emph{Hey! we are all part of The CentOS

Project}.

Other corporate structures for The CentOS Project have been considered

as well. Such is the case of producing one different visual style for

each major releasae of CentOS Distribution. This structure isn't

inconvenient at all, but some visual contradictions could be

introduced if it isn't applied correctly and we need to be aware of

it. To apply it correctly, we need to know what The CentOS Project and

which are the visual manifestations it is made of.

The CentOS Project, as organization, is mainly made of (but not

limited to) three visual manifestions: Distribution, Web and

Stationery. Inside the Distribution visual manifestations, The CentOS

Project maintains near to four different major releases of CentOS

Distribution, parallely in time.  Inside Web and Stationery visual

manifestations content is visually produced to fit non-release-specifc

content but treat it as a visual manifestation properly. For example,

consider that there is no a complete web site for each major release

of CentOS distribution, but one web site to cover the information

related to all release-specific visual manifestations like CentOS

distribution.

In order to produce the correct corporate structure for The CentOS

Project we need to concider all the visual manifestations The CentOS

Project is made of, not just one of them.  If one different visual

style is used for each major release of The CentOS Distribution, which

one of those different visual styles would be used to cover the

remaining visual manifestations The CentOS Project is made of (e.g.,

web sites and stationery)? 

Probably you are thinking, that's right, but The CentOS Brand connects

them all already, why would we need to join them up into the same

visual style too, isn't it more work to do, and harder to maintain?

Harder to maintain, more work to do, probably. Specially when you

consider that The CentOS Project has proven stability and consistency

through time and that, certainly, didn't come through swinging magical

wangs or something but hardly working out to automate tasks and

providing maintainance through time. Said that, we consider that The

CentOS Project Visual Structure should be consequent with such

stability and consistency tradition. It is true that The CentOS Brand

does connect all the visual manifestations it is present on, but that

connection would be stronger if one unique visual style backups it.

In fact, whatever thing you do to strength the visual connection among

The CentOS Project visual manifestations would be very good in favor

of The CentOS Project recognition.

Obviously, having just one visual style in all visual manifestations

for eternity would be a very boring thing and would give the idea of a

visually dead project. So, there is no problem on creating a brand new

visual style for each new major release of The CentOS Distribution, in

order to refresh The CentOS Distribution visual style; the problem is

in not propagating the brand new visual style created for the new

release of CentOS Distribution to all other visual manifestations The

CentOS Project is made of, in a way The CentOS Project could be

recognized no matter what visual manifestation be in front of us. Such

lack of uniformity is what introduces the visual contradition we are

precisely trying to solve by mean of themes production in the CentOS

Artwork Repository.

@subsection Usage

The @file{trunk/Identity/} directory structure is organized in

@emph{renderable} and @emph{non-renderable} directories. Generally,

renderable directories are stored under @file{trunk/Identity/Images}

and @file{trunk/Identity/Themes/Motifs} directories. These directories

contain the image files used to implemente The CentOS Project

Corporate Identity.

@subsubsection Rendition

In order to produce content inside rendereble directories, you can use

the following command:

@verbatim 

centos-art render trunk/Identity/Path/To/Dir

@end verbatim

@quotation 

@strong{Warning} If the @command{centos-art} command-line

is not found in your workstation, it is probably because you haven't

prepared your workstation for using The CentOS Artwork Repository yet.

@xref{Directories trunk Scripts Functions Prepare}, for more

information.  

@end quotation

This command takes one design template (a.k.a., design model) from the

template directory and creates an instance of it in order to apply

translation messages, if any. Later, using the translated design

template instance, the command renders the final content based on

whether the design template instance is a SVG file or XHTML.  If the

design template instace is a SVG file, the final content produced is a

PNG image. On the other hand, if the design template instance is a

XHTML file, the final content produced is a XHTML file. The rendition

flow described so far is known as the @command{centos-art.sh} script

@emph{base-rendition} flow.

Besides the base-rendition flow, the @command{centos-art} provides

@emph{post-rendition} and @emph{last-rendition} flows.  The

post-rendition flow is applied to files produced as result of

base-rendition flow under the same directory structure. For example,

you can use post-rendition action to convert the PNG base output into

different outputs formats (e.g., JPG, PDF, etc.) before passing to

process the next file in the same directory structure.  The

last-rendition flow, on the other hand, is applied to all files

produced as result of both base-rendition and post-rendition flows in

the same directory structure, just before passing to process a

different directory structure.  For example, the @file{Preview.png}

image from Ksplash component is made of three images. In order to

build the @file{Preview.png} image through @command{centos-art.sh} we

need to wait for all the three images the @file{Preview.png} image is

made of to be rendered in order to combine them all together into just

one image (i.e., the @file{Preview.png} image).  This is something we

can't do using post-rendition flow.

Inside @file{trunk/Identity} directory structure, you can find that

base-rendition, post-rendition and last-rendition flows can be

combined to build @emph{directory-specific} rendition.  The

directory-specific rendition exists to automatically process specific

renderable directories in very specific ways. Using directory-specific

rendition speeds up production of different components like Syslinux,

Grub, Gdm, Kdm and Ksplash that require intermediate formats or even

several independent files, in order to reach the final content

construction.  Directory-specific rendition is a way to

programmatically describe how specific art works are built in and

organized inside The CentOS Artwork Repository.  Such descriptions

have been added to @command{centos-art.sh} command-line to let you

produce them all with just one single command, as fast as your machine

can be able to handle it. 

@xref{Directories trunk Scripts Functions Render}, for more

information about the @command{render} functionality of

@command{centos-art.sh} script.

@subsubsection Documentation

@subsubsection Localization

@subsection See also

See @url{http://en.wikipedia.org/Corporate_identity} (and related

links), for general information on Corporate Identity. 

Specially useful has been, and still is, the book @emph{Corporate

Identity} by Wally Olins (1989). This book provides many conceptual

ideas we've used as base to build The CentOS Artwork Repository.